that's what music is.

2010-10-15T20:37:00.001+08:00

Thank You, Lord,
for the trials that come my way.
In that way I can grow each day
as I let You lead,
And thank You, Lord,
for the patience those trials bring.
In that process of growing,
I can learn to care.

But it goes against the way I am
To put my human nature down
and let the Spirit take control of all I do.

'Cause when those trials come,
my human nature shouts the thing to do;
and God's soft prompting
can be easily ignored.

I thank You, Lord,
with each trial I feel inside,
that You're there to help,
lead and guide me away from wrong.
'Cause You promised, Lord,
that with every testing,
that Your way of escaping is easier to bear.

But it goes against the way I am
To put my human nature down
and let the Spirit take control of all I do.

'Cause when those trials come,
my human nature shouts the thing to do;
and God's soft prompting
can be easily ignored.

I thank You, Lord,
for the victory that growing brings.
In surrender of everything
life is so worth while.
And I thank You, Lord,
that when everything's put in place,
out in front I can see Your face,
and it's there You belong.

SWITZERLAND (:

2009-09-30T23:14:00.001+08:00

YAY! Haha. Hope we don't end up rolling down instead. (:

Blogging Assignment 2: Tortoise tales.

2009-09-30T18:21:00.007+08:00

Hello everyone!

For my 2nd blogging assignment, I decided to be more daring, and listen to a piece of work that is more experimental and different. I chanced upon La Monte Young's Pre-Tortoise Dream Music (ctrl click to go to link!) while doing some search. What an interesting title! Then I started listening to it. And immediately, the first thing that came to my mind was WHAT IS THIS?! Is this music? How am I going to analyse this at all?!

Before I continued, I also asked myself if this video is authentic. (I asked this because I found a video under the title of another Young's work, but is in fact some nonsensical experiment some people were toying around with.) I suppose this is, because there are also a few other authentic recordings of Young's works that are available by the same person who uploaded this.

First listen
There is a drone that is very apparent throughout the whole piece. And probably because of this drone, I find that this piece actually sounds like Indian music to me. However, the difference is that there is no raga or melody that I can hear. Hehh. In terms of harmony, it doesn't really sound dissonant, but I must say that the tuning is quite interesting. I also couldn't really figure out what instruments or materials were used in this recording, but I could hear stringed instruments though.

Hmmm. So how is music linked to the title of Pre-Tortoise Dream Music? Haha. Perhaps it's very slow-moving?! There are also people who commented that this is very hypnotic. So in a way it's kind of dreamy I suppose..

Anyway, this is my first time REALLY listening to this genre of music and sticking right through till the end. Come to think of it, I know where I have encountered similar sounds before - before the start of a band practice! Where people would attempt to tune their instruments (mind the different frequencies) all at the same time, some playing the tonic, some playing the dominant, and some others just playing some random notes. Imagine the kind of sound and tension created! Yup, quite similar, to me that is. Heh. Somehow, even just finishing this video (slightly over 10 minutes) makes my head feel tight and uncomfortable. Honestly, I was quite glad when the recording ending. The immediate silence that came after that was very welcoming.

Hopefully when I return with more information about this piece in the next entry I would have a changed opinion. -optimistic-

P.S. I thought I was seriously getting faint and dizzy from an overdose of such music cos I felt some shaking. But my sis just told me that she felt some tremors too! An earthquake somewhere? Oh no.

A Consideration for Term Project

2009-09-30T01:51:00.003+08:00

Was thinking of analysing a work by Alan Hovhaness, a 20th Century composer, for my Term Project. His work Concerto for Two Pianos (1954) is without doubt, a 'East meets West' piece of work. In the first movement, we hear sounds of the Indonesian Gamelan. The 2nd movement beautifully recreates sounds of the Kanun, a middle easten zither. In the 3rd and also final movement, we hear the Jhala Teranga.

However, this piece was only recently premiered in Moscow in March 2004. Looks like my chances of getting hold onto the score is tremendously slim. Searched the Esplanade Library Catalouge and the search returned with 0 results. So I guess I have to look for another piece of work.. Unless someone anyone has any clues where I can find the score!! Please respond asap if you know k (:

Revelation! (Part II)

2009-09-29T18:37:00.009+08:00

Hello everyone! I'm back with more information! (:

Olivier Messiaen was very devout in his faith, and was always concerning himself with spiritual issues. Raised a Catholic, many of Messiaen's works are inspired by theological thinking. Quatour pour la Fin du temps, known in English as Quartet for the End of Time, is a chamber piece composed by Olivier Messiaen in 1941 for a quartet consisting of a Bb clarinet, a violin, a cello and a piano. There are altogether 8 movements in this whole work, and it lasts for about 50 minutes in total. Why 8 movements? There is actually a rationale for this. Messiaen said, "Seven is the perfect number, the six days of Creation, sanctified by the Divine Sabbath; the seven of this rest is prolonged into eternity and becomes the eight of everlasting light, of eternal peace."

In the description of the first movement, Liturgie de Cristal, Messiaen commented, "Between three and four in the morning, the awakening of birds: a solo blackbird or nightingale improvises, surrounded by a shimmer of sound, by a halo of trills lost very high in the trees. Transpose this onto a religious plane and you have the harmonious silence of Heaven." Hence, in this first movement, music theorists have interpreted that the clarinet and violin are imitaing the blackbird and nightingale respectively, and the cello and piano representing Heaven.

Let's look at the parts of the clarinet and the violin. The clarinet imitates the song of a blackbird, which is the one commonly seen in Singapore I think. However, it doesn't really sound like one right? As Pople explains it, the clarinet part is "more as a literal attempt to transcribe elements of the blackbird's characteristic song within the limitations of the instrument chosen", for example the trills and the different pitches. The nightingale, then, is imitated by the violin.

Now, let's take a look at the music of the cello and the piano. These 2 parts actually play very important roles, and are very interesting in terms of its construction too, contrary to what I thought initially. The cello part is a fifteen-note melody consisting of 5 pitches (C, E, D, F# and Bb, which is a whole tone scale without the Ab) repeated over and over again throughout the whole movement. As it repeats, the note value of each note remains the same, even though the positions of the notes in relation to the barlines change. For the piano part, it is made up of a cycle of twenty-nine chords.

Hence, because of this continuous and unchanging aspect, these two parts come to represent Heaven, as mentioned earlier. Their parts are constructed in such a way that they seem to be without a beginning or an end. For example, when this first movement reaches the end, the cello part is interrupted midway through its 8th repetition.

Also, Messiaen was actually making use of concepts regarding prime numbers to make sure that the piano's rhythmic and harmonic parts do not 'match' the sequence carried by the cello (except on a larger scale), i.e. they do not have the same point of resolution. Thus, it would seem like the parts are playing different things and don't match. However, beneath this mesh of sound, there is still an underlying regular 3/4 meter.

This is actually characteristic of Messiaen's works as he liked to use beats of irregular length (with an underlying regular meter) in his music, to great effect. Due to influences from his teachers such as Marcel Dupre and Maurice Emmanuel, who introduced to him ancient Greek meters and rhythms, Messiaen developed deep interest in this area. Another great influence in this development of Messiaen's works is through the study of classical Indian rhythms. (A website on Olivier Messiaen; this webpage shows his rhythmic influences). In this movement, we can find tools such as non-retrogradable rhythms, derived from the ancient Indian rhythms.

The complex use of rhythmic devices in this movement demands a high standard of technicality and accuracy from the players. However, we can also say that it provides more leeway for errors without spoiling the overall effect of the piece, since a 'normal' audience would most probably not recognise it (unless it's a super unpardonable mistake, or the audience is someone who is familiar with the piece, then it's a different matter). Heh.

I'll end off with this last bit of interesting information. The first performance of this piece is done in the prison, while Messiaen is still in captivity, in front of 5000 other prisoners. Apparently, the piece was very well-received as the audience could identify with it somehow, and they were deeply moved. About twenty years later, Messiaen recalled that he had "never ... been listened to with such consideration and understanding".

Anyway, there are so much more about this piece than what is being shared here. Go check it out k! I hope I managed to get you all excited about this piece. (:

Bibliography
Pople, Anthony. Messiaen: Quatour pour la Fin du Temps. (Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Blogging Assignment 1: Revelation!

2009-09-25T05:13:00.007+08:00

Hi Dr. Chong and AAI 333 classmates!

While searching for a piece of 20th/21st Century work to listen to, I chanced upon Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. The circumstances in which this piece was composed caught my attention, and TA-DA!, I have my choice of work for this assignment. So I took a listen to this piece of work on YouTube (this is the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-r59Iyx6-0&feature=related) and was not exactly appalled with what I heard because this IS contemporary music, with all its elements. I was actually expecting something even more... sophisticated and complex, and this is probably also because this is a piece regarding the End of Time. But anyway, I find the clarinettist's (in this video recording) tone and skills excellent!! Hehe.

What caught my attention
I know there are many 20th Century works that are composed in captivity. However, I just felt so excited that Messiaen was actually a Prisioner of War (Pow) himself! It is already difficult to imagine a musician going through all the war-time torture and hardship, much less as a PoW! Anyway, Messiaen was captured and taken prisoner in 1940, when France fell into the hands of Germany. While he was in the PoW camp, there were 3 other musicians (other than Messiaen himself who played the piano) and they played the clarinet, violin and cello respectively. And that was how he came up with the instrumentation - through what was available. So interesting right?! Anyway, for this assignment I'll only be looking at the first movement "Liturgie de Cristal", which means "Liturgy of Crystal" when translated into English.

What I heard
This piece started with the clarinet's entry. The clarinet seems to be the main part in this first movement since it is more prominent than the rest of the instruments. However, I wouldn't say that it carries a melody, because there is no melody or melodic phrases here that can be easily sung to. In fact, the musical line that the clarinet carries sounds very angular and disjunct. It even sounds random...! This is the thing about music from this period. (Warning: Griping ahead.) I find that I always cannot relate to them, because they sound so 'meaningless', like I really wouldn't know what to expect next. So unpredictable! However, being already halfway through the module, after learning about some of the different compositional tools that these composers use, I guess we are slowly starting to appreciate where they are coming from.

Anyway, it's actually my first time seeing and hearing the cello being used in such a way - bowing shrill and long notes in a higher-than-usual register. Also, it hit me that the violin part in this piece only provides a rhythmic element, which is repeated throughout.

Speaking of rhythm! I feel that on the whole, this piece sounds like one of an irregular meter. It's again unlike classical works with mostly regular meters where we could tap our feet to. Like its melody, the rhythmic part is very unpredictable too!

But I guess it's not a completely-cannot-understand-anything kind of thing here. I do hear relationships like imitations and repetitions, and also some king of a theme, and so on. However, I do feel that the instruments seem to be totally unrelated to one another. Each part is like in their own little world playing different things. The piano part contains chords throughout the piece, and in my opinion, if it is suppose to provide some sort of harmonic structure, are there even harmonies to start with, when every part is playing seemingly different things?

I don't know, all the different aspects make this piece very mystifying, probably depicting the End of Time slowly creeping in...? :D Anyhow, I shall attempt to provide you all with more information on what this piece really is about after doing some research! In my next blog post! (:

The Point of No Return, Part 2

2008-03-31T18:29:00.007+08:00

The above is a functional and phrasal analysis of The Point of No Return.

The song is basically built up of sentences of the form 2-2-3 (short-short-long) with another 1 bar by itself. I would like to think of that bar as a linkage between two parts, so it's not really considered within the sentence structure. However, seeing it from another way, it can be of the form 2-2-4, making it more balanced. Then again, because of the breakdown in part 2, which is of the form 2-2-3, 2-5, 1, I think the bigger form of 2-2-3 will be more likely..

As for the functional analysis, I think it's not too difficult despite all the modulations, because ultimately it's really just tonic and dominant expansions, and it follows the model of T-PD-D-T too. :)

Okae, this song actually uses some non-harmonic tones such as suspensions (there's one in bar 5), neighbour notes, passing notes and so on. These can be seen from the score.

An interesting thing to note is that the composer (Andrew Lloyd Webber) also made use of arpeggic patterns, as can be seen from bars 19, 20 and 21.

Yupyup, so this ends my analysis for The Point of No Return. Feel free to comment on any mistakees! :D

Music Analysis 3 (Sem 2)

2008-03-31T15:57:00.014+08:00

The Point of No Return - Phantom of the Opera

Havent blogged for so long since last year’s 2nd analysis that I almost forgot my password. Had to try 3 times before I got it.. Heh.

Anw, for blogging assignment this time, I’ll be analyzing The Point of No Return from the musical The Phantom of the Opera, which is familiar to most. I watched the musical a few months back when the troop came to Singapore. However, given my goldfish memory, I can’t really remember when this song was sung in the musical. But it’s probably towards the end where the Phantom was feeling much more anguish and desolation.

There are 4 sections to this song, the 1st and 3rd sections, and the 2nd and 4th sections are actually quite similar, with just some variations. I won’t be analyzing the whole song, but just the last section of it because firstly, this section itself already has lots to talk about, secondly, doing the whole song will be too long, and lastly, the 1st and 3rd sections are too complicated. There are lots of tonicisation and I think there’s bitonality involved too..

Okae, what attracted me to this song is the more lyrical part of it (2nd and 4th sections). This section (I’ll refer to it as ‘song’ from now on) starts off in a minor key (F minor), but doesn’t stay in that mode for long. Instead, throughout the whole song, it keeps alternating between minor and major chords, staying for just a short few bars. This local change in mode is what makes it interesting.

To make reference easy, I will start numbering the bars from the 3rd system on page 69, which is the section we’re looking at here. There are 3 main parts, which are as follows:

Part 1 – bars 1 to 8

Part 2 – bars 9 to 23

Part 3 – bars 24 to 33

However, I will not call this a ternary form because the 2nd part is not totally a contrasting section from parts 1 & 3, and is still in the same key as the 1st part. The 3rd and last part is quite similar to part 1, but has been modulated to a different key (this will be further elaborated later on). Now for some analysis.

Harmonic Analysis
The harmonic analysis is written on the uploaded music sheets. Different coloured pens show the different tonality. Anw, there are a few things about this song that I would like to point out here.

(1) The first 4 bars of all parts 1, 2 & 3 are played over a tonic pedal, thus I’d just label it as chord I. Voice-leading is indicated in orange.

(2) At bar 4 (and similarly at b. 12 & 27), there is a sudden change of local mode as the song borrows a chord I from its parallel major key. The song then modulates to the relative major in Ab at bar 5. Here, Db chord (chord VI of F minor and IV of Ab major) serves as a common (pivot) chord between the two tonalities. Even though this i-III form of modulation between relative keys is quite common, it still gives listener a fresh and different feeling due to the change in colour.

(3) At bar 8, the C7 chord is a V going to a I in F minor. Hmm, was just wondering if this is also a common-tone (C) modulation back to to F minor? And, how should I explain the progression from Ab (bar 7) to C? Heh. Okae, moving on..

(4) The 2nd part comes in at bar 9, and follows the same melodic and harmonic progression as the 1st part for 7 bars. After that, it progresses on for another 8 interesting bars, tonicising Db major (b. 17), and Cb major (bar 19) along the way.

(5) At bar 23, the V7 of F minor (C7) comes in again, and listeners might expect the song to return to F minor. Instead, at bar 24 (part 3), it is modulated to G minor. This is a sequential modulation; G minor chord is not diatonic in F minor, it is modulated through the use of the melodic sequence.

(6) Part 3 also has a similar melodic and harmonic progression as the previous parts for 7 bars. It then adds in 3 more bars to bring the whole song to a closure.

Alrights, I'll post this up for now. Will talk about functional analysis and phrase structure and other things in another post.. Hmm, I think I missed out alot of things and some might not be accurate. So correct me if i'm wrong k? :)

When God Made You

2007-09-27T17:24:00.001+08:00

Music Analysis 2 (Recess week)

2007-09-27T10:17:00.000+08:00

For the blog assignment this time round, I'll be analysing on a duet called When God Made You by Newsong and Natalie Grant. A friend of mine introduced it to me last week and I was immediately attracted to the soothing introduction, albeit a bit short. Coupled with meaningful and touching lyrics, this is a wonderful song. I've posted the youtube video above, listen to it if you're free. :)

Analysis of song(duet) When God Made You (opening phrase)

The song started off in the key of D, but when it reaches the opening phrase in bar 5, there was an abrupt modulation(i hope i got this right!) to C Major. There are a lot of modulations in this song, most probably because it's a duet meant for a male and female, and as we know, there is quite a difference in our voice ranges. But anw, I'll just be analysing on the opening phrase, which is from bar 5 to 8.

Roman Numerals: I - V - vi7 - IV - I6 - IV - V

The literal Harmonic Function I get out of the roman numerals are actually:
T- D - (T) - PD - T - PD - D

However, I would like to treat the T - D - (T) (purple part) as a tonic expansion, and PD - T - PD (orange) as a predominant expansion, and this would result in a harmonic function of T - PD - D, and a T on the subsequent phrase, which isn't shown. This would be the 'classic' Harmonic Phrase Model that we have learnt during music class.

Highlighted in bar 7, the 1st inversion of chord I is used here. This is to smoothen out the bassline to form bass notes F-E-F-G (bars 7 & 8). Imagine if the root position of chord I was used, the bass notes would form F-C-F-G, which really isn't very smooth.

For this first phrase, there is one non-harmonic tone which can be found in bar 6. The highlighted note (B) in the right hand part is a Neighbour Tone (NT), which is approached by step from the note C and proceeded by step to a C.

That's all for now, I really hope i can get a full music sheet for this then I can finish analysing the song because it's nice! :)

Collin Raye's Love, Me

2007-09-08T02:30:00.001+08:00

Music Analysis 1 (E-learning week)

2007-09-08T01:38:00.000+08:00

Hello!

For my 1st music blogging assignment, I'll be doing an analysis on a song by Collin Raye called Love, Me. For those who have not heard this song before, I've posted a youtube video of it above this post. Spend a lil time listening to it, it's a nice song. :)

Analysis of the song Love, Me (opening phrase)

This song is written in C Major, which makes things easier.

Roman Numeral analysis: I - V6 - vi - IV - V - I

Harmonic function: T - D - (T) - PD - D - T

The 1st phrase of this song has 2 harmonic phrases, first being T-D-(T), and the second PD-D-T.

It is also interesting to note that the composer/arranger used the 1st inversion of the 2nd chord (ie. 1st Dominant), because then the bass note that it forms becomes a passing note between the 1st and 3rd bass notes --> C-B-A.

Alrights, that's all I have for now.

Enjoy ur weekend everyone. :)

A first timer.

2007-08-26T20:07:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone, welcome to my blog. :)

This is my first time blogging.. And it feels kinda weird. Haha. Oh well, have to get used to it. Anw, this is where I'll be putting up some musical analysis of pieces and hopefully some details of my life. So just watch out for this space and feel free to post any comments that you have! :)

Have a blessed week ahead!